


towards the forest

by spacestationtrustfund



Category: White Collar
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Multi, Road Trips, some much-needed closure, that makes this entire thing seem so much more light hearted than it is in reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9814637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: Sometimes Neal thinks it’s just Stockholm Syndrome—you get used to a certain sort of imprisonment, enough so that you start to miss it. The phantom weight on his ankle, the aching loss of that familiar smile. Sometimes he thinks it’s just how screwed up he is, that the slightest bit of unconditional kindness has messed with his head to make him think things he doesn’t mean. Sometimes he thinks he’s been conned into caring about people he shouldn’t give a damn about, conned into wanting to go back, conned into loving.-Or: 'why am I writing this so many years after this show ended, when will I be free from this'





	

**Author's Note:**

> Friends, it has been eight years, and I only just finished this. My track record grows more abysmal with each new day.
> 
> Warnings: there are guns, and blood, and (vague) descriptions of panic attacks, and the usual crime/bad decisions that go along with Neal Caffrey.
> 
> Another small note: in real life, WITSEC doesn't cover NYC.

Kate Moreau dies when the plane she’s on explodes, flames consuming the metal belly of the plane and the structure collapsing in on itself, awash in fire and smoke.

There are such things as objective truths, and this is one of them: Kate Moreau is dead. Everyone knows this. There is no way a human being could feasibly escape the explosion; there is no way a human being could feasibly crawl out from the wreckage and flames and salvage such destruction.

This is an objective truth: _feasible_ is a lie.

There are things that are truths, and there are things that are lies, and Neal Caffrey lives in the grey area between the two, a pendulum swinging from one objectivity to the next, restless, searching, unable to stay on one side.

And he knows this: Kate Moreau’s death is a truth. She died, she’s dead, she’s gone, and she’s not coming back.

Objectivity is a funny thing sometimes. It doesn’t like to play by the rules.

 

-

 

CASE FILE: NEAL CAFFREY (FBI)

Nicholas “Nick” Halden: b. September 24, 1979, Reno, Nevada, USA. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: 125lb. Eyes: BLU. Hair: BRN. Notes: wanted for money laundering, gambling scams.

Steve Tabernackle: b. August 8, 1980, Beverly Hills, California, USA. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: 125lb. Eyes: BLU. Hair: BRN. Notes: wanted for investment fraud.

George Donnelly: b. February 22, 1979, West Bloomfield, Michigan (MI), USA. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: 125lb. Eyes: BLU. Hair: BRN. Notes: art forgery, art fencing.

George Devore: b. December 25, 1976, Nogales, Arizona, USA. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: 125lb. Eyes: BLU. Hair: BRN.

Benjamin Cooper: b. July 1, 1980, [CITY UNKNOWN], Delaware, USA. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: 125lb. Eyes: BLU. Hair: BRN.

George Rydell: b. August 23, 1977, New York, Maryland, USA. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: 125lb. Eyes: BRN. Hair: BRN. Notes: world-class fencer and smuggler; wanted for multiple crimes.

Neal George Caffrey: b. [MONTH UNKNOWN], [DATE UNKNOWN], [YEAR UNKNOWN], in [CITY UNKNOWN], [STATE UNKNOWN], [COUNTRY UNKNOWN]. Sex: M. Height: 5’9.5’’. Weight: [UNKNOWN]. Eyes: BLU. Hair: BRN. Notes: currently working as criminal informant with Agent Peter Burke (see file).

 

-

 

Kate’s hand is gripping the edge of the car door, her fingernails painted bright green. She always liked colourful polish; Neal once gave her a $5000 bottle of _Verde,_ for her birthday, which he acquired more or less legally. That was six years ago. It feels an eternity.

“Neal,” she says, or at least her mouth opens and forms the word, _Neal,_ but he can’t hear the sound.

They should go. Neal’s at a crossroads again, like Jones was always saying; he’s got another choice, another decision. He’s never been good with decisions.

Peter told him to run.

That should be enough.

“We need to go,” says Kate, voice urgent, bright-coloured nails scraping the paint of the car, and he hears her this time.

Kate Moreau is supposed to be dead, and Peter Burke is not.

It’s funny how those things work out.

He gets in the car, and they drive.

 

-

 

It was almost seven years ago that they last did something like this, now that he thinks about it; Neal isn’t just out of practice being a con man, he’s out of practice being Neal Caffrey.

At least: the Neal Caffrey known to Kate Moreau.

The danger with living alongside a dozen-odd aliases is that sometimes you forget which one is the real you.

Kate drives the way she does everything else: precise, careful, her hands resting carefully on the wheel at two and ten. She taps her fingernails against the plastic as she drives, an irregular pattern. Neal spends too long trying to figure out if she’s tapping her fingers in any sort of code.

He doesn’t ask until he can’t hold it off any longer. “How did—”

“It was supposed to be a decoy, Neal,” says Kate, her perfect lips pressed together tightly. The way she says his name sounds strange, unfamiliar. “The explosion would make it seem like we were dead, and then they wouldn’t be coming after us. That way your FBI friends wouldn’t have any reason to hunt us down. We’d be together. There’s no point in chasing a ghost.”

Neal doesn’t ask her about anything else—there’s a million questions, years of questions yawning hungry and open between them, a healing wound whose bandages have just been abruptly ripped off to reveal the pink skin beneath. He doesn’t mention the bottle, the coded letters, the frantic phone calls, the cryptic notes, the origami birds slipped into his pockets on crowded metro stations. Even after four years, Kate can still make a perfect peace crane.

 

-

 

They stop at a dingy Motel 6 on the outskirts of some town that would never show up on a map of the area. Neal hasn’t been somewhere like this since the first night, before he met June, when Peter took him to a motel and left him there. _Peter_. It’s a visceral ache, thinking about New York. It’s been so long since he’s run like this.

They’re in the outer DC area. Neal buys a cheap burner phone from a corner store and calls Elizabeth.

“Burke residence,” she says when she picks up, and Neal doesn’t say anything for a long, sharp moment, eyes closed, drinking in the comforting sound of her voice. “Hello?”

“Hey, El,” he says, awkward as he’s ever been—that’s Peter’s nickname for her, one reserved for private conversations and personal truths, and it feels strange and foreign in his mouth. He’s playing at belonging again. “How’re you holding up?”

“ _Neal_ ,” she says, and his name sounds like a sob, “Neal, we’ve been worried sick, where _are_ you? They almost put us both in WITSEC, we haven’t been told anything, Peter’s half out of his mind—”

Kate comes out of the bathroom in a towel, wet hair falling loosely over one shoulder. She lifts her perfect eyebrows when Neal makes a shushing motion with one hand, clipped and rough.

“Tell Peter I’m—” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. “Is he all right?”

“He’s still in intensive care, sweetie, but they’re going to release him by the end of the week if he stays on his best behaviour—where are you?”

Neal closes his eyes again for as long a time as he dares. “My love to you both,” he says, and hangs up the phone.

He leaves the phone at the motel—after ripping out the SIM card and crushing the battery—next to the soap, individually wrapped in those little paper packets that he’s always associated with hotels. He wipes off the sink to clear it of fingerprints, but doesn’t bother with the doorknobs or headboard or light switch.

You’re getting sloppy, says a voice in his head that sounds almost like Keller. It’s like you wanna get caught.

They drive.

The roads are nearly deserted at this time of the night, sometime close to the early morning, still several hours out from dawn. They pass the occasional truck, lights blazing, a wide and solid shadow in the dark. Neal doesn’t know if he wants to ask for a destination. It’s always risky, asking for details when it comes to Kate.

It turns out they’re headed to the DC airport; Kate stops the car by the terminal. “I already packed,” she whispers, her voice only a little hoarse from hours of disuse. It’s the first sign he’s seen from her that’s she still anything like the person he used to be in love with.

Is still in love with, he thinks, and leans across the console to kiss her. She lets him, setting one cool hand on his cheek, her mouth opening slightly. Her lips are soft, and taste like her strawberry lip gloss.

She doesn’t smile when they pull apart. “First class,” she says, and hands him a plane ticket. Their bags are in the back seat.

This plane doesn’t explode. It’s an irrational fear, that it will.

Neal has never liked aeroplanes. He has a list of things he doesn’t like, things he tends to avoid on cons whenever he can: aeroplanes, gags, branding. Killing, of course. Guns.

It’s not the heights, it’s the feeling of hanging suspended in the air, above the world, with inertia so notable that they could easily be crushed, torn apart, smothered by the oppressive force of the air pressing down on them.

Kate orders a bottle of champagne under the name Maria Yvotskaniya.

 

-

 

Yvotskaniya: an alias Neal has never met. He’s had his share of false names, worn them like coats, shedding one for the next, pulling the façade over his face with the easy grace of familiarity. Nick Halden was probably his favourite. Kate liked Nick Halden. Kate liked Neal Caffrey, too.

He’s seen her as Katerina Ghirlandaio, Kate Rinascimento, Katherine Marlowe, Katerina Giaconda. _Moreau_. He’s never been gullible enough to think that was her real name. She might as well have chosen Kate Baudelaire, since she liked the Symbolist movement so much.

Kate likes the classics: everyone knows that.

 

-

 

“How’s your Italian?” she asks, several hours later, confirming his suspicions; she has a blanket, borrowed from the flight attendant, covering her legs. The bottle of champagne is nearly empty, and rattles faintly in the cup holder on the armrest.

Neal gives her the most charming smile he can manage. “ _Passabile_.” Kate smiles back, a quick little curve of her mouth. “I take it we’re going to Italy, then?”

“Yes,” she says, but her eyes dart about the compartment, searching, wary. Hunted.

Kate has somehow managed to arrange a palazzo for them to stay at briefly, complete with flourishing palms and silken sheets and marble columns. “You’re a wonder, Ms. Moreau,” he says, sincere, and she looks startled for a moment, like she hasn’t quite slid back into that particular shell yet.

“Come on,” she says, and leads him by the hand to the balcony.

The view is spectacular. By all reasonable accounts, it puts New York to shame.

 

-

 

During the years he was in prison, Neal heard stories. There is little else that he wants to remember, but he doesn’t mind thinking of the stories; he heard about families, about brothers and sisters and children and wives, jobs and hobbies and pets. The stories were a way to connect to a vanished life—anything to stay human. He heard from a man who’d fought in some war, who was missing one leg, about phantom limbs: the ache of something that doesn’t exist. The body’s inability to accept physical loss.

Neal’s fingers keep returning to his ankle, casual and unasked for, unconscious or maybe subconscious. He feels too light without the familiar weight, as though he might drift away into the perfect Italian sky like an untethered balloon. When he tries to remind himself he’s a free man now, all his mind has to offer is the memory of touch, of fingers brushing the hem of his slacks, strong and capable hands fitting the tracker into place.

He doesn’t even dream about people, just pieces: hands, arms, mouths. It’s almost painfully tangible, but he can use this to tell himself that he doesn’t really miss the _people_.

It always takes a while to settle in to a new place, and even more time the longer he stayed in the last one. The silk sheets remind him of June’s—there’s no hidden safe behind the painting here in the palazzo, although there is an original Van Gogh hanging above the headboard.

Almond blossoms. Kate kisses him first this time, unbuttons his shirt and slides it off before she sits on the bed and meticulously undoes her blouse, until he reaches out to finish the task for her. Time doesn’t seem to be working the same way it did in New York—the time zone shift will take some getting used to, he knows that much. Everything has the quality of fine wine, rich and amber and liquid, moving sluggishly throughout everything.

He thinks he dreams that night.

There are arms wrapped about his chest, holding him back, that’s the first sensation he feels: strong, dispassionate. Some random paramedic, tasked with restraining the bereaved, only interested in doing his job.

And there’s blood on his hands. In his mouth, too; it’s dripped down his face from a cut on his forehead, trickled into his mouth. He can taste the coppery tang of it.

The blood on his hands isn’t his. If he were a superstitious man, further from Peter and closer to Mozzie, he would call it some sort of metaphor. After all these years, the blood on his hands has caught up to the physical, and it’s not even his own.

Above anything else, he dreams about how it all felt: pure terror, white-hot and electrifying, something he hasn’t felt in years. Not even when he was caught either time, not even when Matthew Keller held a gun to his face, not even when an aeroplane exploded into a fireball on the runway only yards away from him.

“We have a flight booked to Santa Barbara tomorrow,” Kate tells him over breakfast, which she somehow got delivered to the palazzo. Kate has connections against whom Neal could never hope to compete. He wonders, suddenly, what her family thinks of this little detour she’s taking. “I figured it would be best to stay on the move for a while.”

Neal nods, acquiesces, leans back in his chair and enjoys the view. Kate’s dressed in a silken robe that flutters about her bare legs when she walks over to the railing, holding her glass of orange juice. Eggs, toast—a simple breakfast. She teased him, before, about liking extravagance.

Extravagance was what got you caught. Neal should know better, by now.

 

-

 

Three days and two countries later, he finds a payphone and exchanges a fistful of crisp American cash for a palm full of grubby coins to feed into the slot. He dials Elizabeth, because the only other numbers he has memorised are Mozzie’s and Peter’s, and he doesn’t think he could talk to either of them.

“How’s Peter?” he asks, playing degrees of separation: maybe he can just speak through Elizabeth, who is still Peter’s _wife_. That’s the first degree; maybe he can never speak directly to Peter again. It seems a better resolution than anything else he can envision. He’s no chess player, like Keller was; he can’t always see several moves ahead. The future is a blurred, murky mess.

That’s what you get for canoodling with Big Brother, says a voice in his head that sounds rather like Mozzie. Can’t trust a Suit.

“Oh, sweetie, he’s worried about you, we both are. I know you can’t tell us where you are, but—at least tell me you’re safe.”

Safe. _Safe_ is a tricky word, even though it shouldn’t be; _safe_ is on par with _home_ and _friends_ and _love_. Neal knows his definitions don’t match up with those generally accepted.

He says, “I’m all right. Is he home yet?”

“The hospital released him just this morning,” says Elizabeth, sounding close to tears. “He’s on the porch with Satchmo right now, do you want to talk to him?”

“I can’t,” says Neal, because he made a vow not to lie to her either, and if he tells the truth it won’t ever end. There’s a line from a Robert Frost poem Mozzie quoted once: Yet knowing how way leads on to way. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m managing,” she says. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Well,” says Neal, “kiss Peter for me,” and he hangs up the payphone before he can do something else stupid.

 

-

 

The first time he was on the run from Peter Burke, Neal sent postcards. He sent birthday cards, every August 25th. He sent photographs and wrote _Wish You Were Here_ on the back. He sent an amethyst bracelet, for Elizabeth, and gold cufflinks, for Peter, on their wedding anniversary.

The first time he was on the run from Peter Burke, Neal lay draped across a sofa in Tel Aviv and thought about writing a letter, but couldn’t find the words; a silver tongue was no use when you really needed it, everyone knew that. _Dear Peter, I appreciate all you’ve done to catch me. Dear Peter, give my love to your beautiful wife; I hope you’re both happy together. Dear Peter, New York is an ache in my chest that I can’t fill with frivolity and meaningless superficiality, and I miss the skyline every morning I wake up somewhere new_.

“We’re not playing a game of cat and mouse,” he tells Kate, while he’s zipping up her dress with his fingers and occasionally his teeth, to make her shiver at the touch. They’re going to the opera, both to check out someone Kate thinks might be on to them and to enjoy themselves together, and she’s wearing that sleek, dark-blue thing that matches the necklace encircling her throat and the stones glittering at her ears. “We don’t have to run.”

“The feds aren’t after you?” she says, wary, as he helps her zip up the back and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Neal!”

“Helping you put this dress on is so counterproductive,” he murmurs against her skin, and she laughs. “I’m not worried about the feds; they wouldn’t find me, much less catch me.”

Kate twists about to give him a look that plainly says, _They did already, twice_.

You like the chase, Peter told him, once, almost accusatory. It’s a game to you, isn’t it?

“There’s—only one agent who could, and he’s—not a problem,” Neal says, and swallows. He moves away to gather up his coat from the closet, where it hangs next to the jacket he was wearing on the plane to Italy. There’s still dried blood on the sleeve, a dull brown in colour and terrible to see. He bites his tongue, releases it before he breaks the skin. Breathes.

 

-

 

It was three months ago. There was a case, a dirty cop with dirty cash, money laundering and siphoning government funds into his own accounts, and it turned into something akin to a mob heist, with various underground criminals turning out to be accomplices or character witnesses, and then there was a shootout and Neal had never liked guns, liked them even less when they threatened people he cared about. A man held a gun to Peter’s head and said, “Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot, I don’t give a shit if you’re feds, drop your fucking weapons.”

Peter slowly set down his gun, eyes flickering between the man and Neal.

“You—disarm!”

“He’s not armed,” said Peter, quickly, as though he could prevent Neal from being touched.

Neal just shrugged loosely and offered up his most charming insincere smile. “Not a gun guy,” he said, which was the easiest explanation when someone had a weapon pointing right at them and Agents Berrigan and Jones were stuck dealing with the rest and the communications unit in Neal’s watch was busted from when he’d been shoved against a wall and it had smashed.

He doesn’t remember exactly what happened next, only that the guy had fired the gun three times, one shot after the other, and Peter had shoved him to the ground, and then the others were there with their familiar mantra—“FBI, drop your weapons!”—and Peter was sprawled on top of him, bleeding. There was gravel digging into his back; his shirt was covered in dirt and dust and blood.

Kate walks into the bedroom, sets her purse on the table. Undoes her coat and slips off her shoes. She tosses him a wallet; cash only, no cards, which would be traceable. They’re in Hong Kong, and the lights of the city through the window are bright and electric. “We have a few days before we have to leave, I thought we could enjoy ourselves.”

Neal does not say, _I thought we already were_. He goes to her, kisses her, runs his hand across her hair. She’s been wearing it loose again, a dark chestnut waterfall. “Did you have anything specific in mind?” he asks, and she laughs, clear and bright enough that for a moment they can both pretend they’re happy with what they have.

 

-

 

In Singapore there’s a note left on the kitchen table of the apartment they’re staying in: _eyes on the prize, Caffrey_. Neal crumples the letter in his fist, slides it into his pocket, and doesn’t tell Kate. The handwriting looks like Peter’s, but that means nothing; Neal can forge Peter’s handwriting with his eyes shut, using either hand. He’s practiced; any good con man would know how to do it. Keller once wrote him a whole letter in Peter’s handwriting, just because he could.

There are plenty of people who would want Neal dead. He’s made his share of enemies in his time.

Crime is like a child’s game, where you lose the vitality and purpose as you grow away from childhood. An adult playing with stuffed toys and plastic trains has none of the urgent magic of a child; coming back into such a world after growing away from it feels like Neal has been trying to recapture something insubstantially intangible. He’s not used to this sort of thing any longer.

It’s like riding a bike, Peter told him once, half-mocking and half-sincere. It never really leaves you.

Neal wants to tell him he’s wrong, tell him that the worst and darkest fear—it’s too late to go back—was right, that reformation isn’t something you can shrug off like an old alias. He can’t go back to New York, and he’s not suited for this life.

How do you get something to chase you?

Run.

The first time he was on the run from Peter Burke, Neal bought a bag of drug-store lollipops in different flavours. They were cheap, not something he’d ever buy of his own volition; he gave the bag to a kid he saw on the street, and waited for the feds to scope out the store.

Peter arrived soon enough, flashing his badge, walking up like he could do anything. The other two were with him—Clinton Jones and Diana Berrigan. Neal had looked into them both, and doubted he could sway their loyalty: Peter ran a tight ship.

Besides, Neal’s usual methods wouldn’t work on Berrigan, and Jones was easily suspicious. That left Peter, again. A sweetshop was one of the more unorthodox meeting places, but Neal hadn’t stolen anything—he just wanted to check it out, and the cash he’d used to pay for the lollipops was clean enough that Peter shouldn’t be _too_ suspicious of his means.

“He bought a green one,” the kid told Neal later, the payment for the bag of suckers, and Neal patted him on the head and went to buy some decently expensive candies.

 

-

 

They rob a bank, in Kiev, Ukraine. A simple tactic, easy target, in and out and Kate’s rose-coloured pumps tap across the smooth marble floor as she walks out the door, carefree and delicate, something shiny and out of reach.

There’s eight and a half million dollars in cash hidden in her purse. Security doesn’t stop her.

A smile can get you anything, Neal learned that years ago. A smile can charm anyone.

 

-

 

“Are we going to talk about Fowler?” Neal asks, a month and a half in. It’s been three weeks since he last talked to Elizabeth. It’s been five weeks since he last talked to Peter. It’s been almost half a year since he talked to Mozzie.

Kate tilts her head, her hair falling in a soft coil away from her neck. They’re in Spain, near the ocean; Kate wanted a view of the sea breaking on the rocks, endlessly worn and beaten. “What else is there to talk about? I told you everything.”

“The bottle, the code, the calls, the ring—I figured that all out, Kate. I know. But you didn’t tell me, I had to figure it out. We weren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other.”

“You figured it out, I knew you would,” she says, quiet.

Neal says, “I wasn’t supposed to have to.”

 

-

 

The money runs out in the French Riviera, and Kate decides they’ll go old school to get more. It’s simple, really: Kate identifies the art they want, Neal makes a copy, they make the switch, and everyone walks free. Neal focuses on the minutiae—the precise colours of the paint, the exact strokes of the brush, the perfect age of the canvas. It’s the sort of detail work that Mozzie always used to help with, but Mozzie isn’t here.

He signs the painting, just his initials, _N.C._ , in the corner. It’s a reckless, stupid move, but he doesn’t plan to be in the country long enough to get caught.

The call he gets at the hotel in Hyères the next night should have been expected.

Kate’s asleep, nestled against his shoulder, her hair curtaining her bare shoulders. The sheets rustle when he moves to grab the hotel phone, and she stirs slightly, but doesn’t wake.

“Look,” says the voice on the other end of the line, “I know where you are, and if I can figure that out, then so can others. I don’t want you to get hurt, but you’ve pulled some stupid stunts recently, and I can’t excuse everything forever, Neal.”

“You saw the forgery, then,” says Neal, and squeezes his eyes shut, tightening his free hand into a fist in the sheets so that he doesn’t break down or scream or throw something. He’s shaking, slightly; it’s not cold enough to warrant something like this.

“Like hell I did. You don’t sign your works,” Peter says, and his voice breaks. Neal always knew he would be the first to break. “I’m serious, Neal, if I can find you, so can the others.”

“The others don’t have Elizabeth to help them.”

He can hear the smile in Peter’s voice, and has to open his eyes and stare firmly at the opposite wall so he doesn’t end up picturing it as well. “She told me you called her. Any particular reason you didn’t talk to me?”

“Peter,” says Neal. He can’t say anything else; for a long, stifling moment, he feels like he’s choking. “I—I can’t.”

“An unregistered Klimt popped up on the black market yesterday; the museum the original was supposed to be hanging said they had the painting in residence. We had them bring in authenticators just in case, and they found the initials. It wasn’t a difficult trail to follow from there, Neal, all we had to do was find the security tapes. You might want to consider getting a new kind of hat that’s more common in the south of France, if you plan to stay. It was easy to track you to the hotel. We called and asked if Nick Halden was staying there. Turns out that he was. You shouldn’t have used an old alias. That was careless, and sloppy.”

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“No,” says Peter. “You and I and El, we’re the only ones. And Kate, I suppose.”

“Kate’s asleep,” says Neal. His throat feels tight, and he can’t breathe. When he tries to draw in a breath, his chest constricts, and he has to struggle for air. There’s something impossibly heavy sitting on his ribcage.

“Any particular reason why Hyères?” Peter asks him. There’s a forced levity to his tone.

Neal closes his eyes again and leans back against the wall of the hotel. “Walter Krivitsky,” he says. “Spy, intelligence officer, surveillance agent. He hid in Hyères while on the run. Switched sides from Stalin’s socialist government to the American ideal. He was a double-crossing backstabber who did the right thing, in some people’s opinions. A man on both sides of history.”

“So you took a leaf out of his book? Does that make me Sedov, or Reiss?”

“You’ve done your homework,” says Neal quietly. “I don’t plan to be found dead in a hotel room.”

“No one does.” Peter exhales, pauses. “Neal,” he says. “Come home.”

 

-

 

These are the facts about Peter Burke: he’s 6’2”, has brown hair and brown eyes, was born August 25th, 1973, in Upstate New York, lives at 106 DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, is an American resident and citizen, attended Dartmouth and got a CBA in Mathematics, is married to Elizabeth Burke, has no children. It could be one of the FBI’s character profiles, just another file in a drawer of a cabinet in some dusty old storage room. These are the facts that make Peter Burke, but they build a translucent shadow of the man he really is, a silhouette punched full of holes through which the faintest of lights can shine. There’s no meat on those old, bleached bones.

“Tell me about that FBI agent who caught you,” Kate says, in Marrakesh, sipping ten-thousand-dollar wine, eyes covered in a pair of huge blue sunglasses. “Why could _he_ find you when no one else could? What made _him_ special?”

Neal thinks about it for a moment, then says, “He just wanted to do the right thing.”

But no: that implies that the others didn’t, and they all had the same objective. You’re the only one who saw any good in me, he told Peter once; he still means it, each time he catches himself thinking about New York and has to dig his fingernails into his palm to make himself stop.

 

-

 

They go to Spain, by aeroplane. Kate wants to see the dancing girls in their bright, flowing skirts, and Neal decides on a new alias: Leo Márquez, offshore businessman, researching local commerce. Kate becomes Isabella Márquez, his wife. “Lo siento, bonita, tengo prisa,” he murmurs into her ear while he’s zipping up her dress, and she laughs.

No Neal, no Nick, no Nicholas, no anything recognisable. It’s the perfect cover.

They get passports from an old acquaintance of Neal’s—“It’s good to see you’re still alive, Caffrey,” the guy says, testing the holographic paper, holding it up to the light. Neal can see right through it; that’s the intention. “Guys like us, we’re in the business for good.”

Newton’s First Law: inertia. A body wants to keep doing what it’s doing. A body will keep doing what it’s doing, unless acted upon by an outside force.

“Do you remember,” he asks Kate one morning, when they’re lying in bed watching the sun creep across the sheets to bathe the room in warm, golden light, “when we just started this, and we only wanted a better life?”

Kate turns over, and the sheets rustle as she props herself up on one elbow, her hair falling loose over her shoulders. She says, “Isn’t that what we still want?”

 

-

 

It isn’t that simple.

Dreams are funny things. They’re objective like the rest of the concepts Neal’s encountered, but the funny thing about dreams is that they stay intangible. There’s no way to change them; their only mutability lies in their unreality.

Neal knows about dreams. He was locked in prison for years; he knows all about unreality.

I could get you put back there, Peter used to say. He stopped saying that, after about a year; the reason he gave was that it was wasting time to reiterate an obvious threat, but Neal can pinpoint the time at which Peter Burke stopped making light of prison, and that was when Neal fell asleep in the car on a long drive back to New York and woke up screaming.

Peter hasn’t mentioned it beyond that one night, hasn’t made any reference, but he doesn’t talk about prison the same way as before. He asked Neal, when Neal was curled in on himself in the passenger seat, shaking— _Is there anything I can do to make up for how they hurt you?_

Neal did not say, _You already have_.

He knows about dreams. He dreams about being held, and wakes up thinking for one brief, shuddering moment that he’s back in New York. He watches the ceiling while Kate breathes softly beside him and allows himself to think about June Ellington. Five minutes, Neal decides, five minutes of missing someone, and when the five minutes are over he gets up to go to the bathroom.

 

-

 

It’s been half a decade since Neal’s been to London, and London was always one of his favourite cities. The world with the anklet shrank to a circle with a two-mile radius, extending perfectly from the pinpoint of Peter Burke. Both circumference and centre: there’s some sort of metaphor there, something Mozzie would probably say, with a sly smirk over a glass of Bordeaux. It puts him in mind of planetary orbits, but those are ellipses instead of circles, and Saturn’s ring isn’t the same as a tracking device.

London isn’t changed. The cities never really change, Neal thinks, it’s always the people. He slips easily back into Nick Halden, executive and mastermind extraordinaire, on vacation touring the world with his young wife. It’s risky, but Neal lives off risk, lets it sing in his blood and crawl under his skin like one of Interpol’s trackers. He doesn’t want to be caught by anyone.

It’s not capture, when it’s Peter, says a voice in his head that sounds like Elizabeth. It’s coming home to us both.

He finds a phone directory, sets his finger on Sarah Ellis’s number, pauses. Her address is only three streets away; he could phone her and ask to come over for dinner. They haven’t seen each other in almost two years.

The evening is cold and cloudy, a promise of rain hanging heavily in the sky, and Kate makes reservations to the finest diner in the city.

 

-

 

People like us, Mozzie says that night, even though Mozzie is in New York or god even knows where else, not in a London hotel room with Kate sleeping in the nest of Neal’s arm—people like us, Neal, we aren’t meant to have the sort of happy endings you read in storybooks. It’s an illusion, happily ever after.

You’re not real, Neal thinks, and shifts his arm carefully so as not to disturb Kate.

People like us, Mozzie repeats, we don’t _deserve_ that kind of happy ending.

That’s when the door is kicked in and Kate wakes up with a strangled cry of surprise and fear; Neal throws himself across her and grabs the gun that’s hidden beneath the pillow in one rough motion. Neal Caffrey might not particularly like guns, but Nicholas Halden never travels without one.

Three men in black ski masks, wearing bulletproof vests. It’s an old classic. Neal aims the gun directly at the forehead of the one who broke down the door. “Get out.”

Kate is clinging to his shoulder, but lightly; she’s careful not to pull on his arm, to misdirect his aim. They’ve been in this position before, countless times. They’re supposed to be a couple on their honeymoon.

Neal clicks off the safety.

“Are you Nick Halden?” asks the first man, his voice grating and gravelly.

“Who hired you?” Neal demands. His free hand starts to reach automatically for the pen hidden in his shirt pocket, before he remembers that not only is he not carrying a tracker, he’s not wearing a shirt. He levels the gun at the space between the man’s eyes.

“Didn’t get a name,” the guy says, stepping back and lifting his hands slowly. “Gave us half a mil, told us to make sure you were out of the picture. Didn’t say anything about a girl.”

Neal gathers the sheets as slowly and carefully as he can bear. “Well, I got the message. I’m out of the picture. Take your money and don’t bother us again, and you’ll live. Try anything, and I’ll make sure whoever hired you to kill _me_ finds someone to deal with _you_.”

It’s been a while since he’s had to deal with second-rate bounty hunters. The whole encounter makes him feel impossibly tired, even with the adrenalin pumping through him; all he wants to do is sleep without worrying. He doesn’t know if he would have fired the gun.

They get dressed in a rush, and Neal arranges train tickets while Kate shoves clothes into the knapsack they’re using as luggage.

It’s almost three in the morning. The clock face is lit up, electric, with tiny blinking numbers.

 

-

 

“I knew something like this would happen sooner or later,” Kate says quietly, later, when they’re on the train. They’re sitting across from a lady in a huge fur coat, everything but the upper half of her face hidden, and a pair of men in rough, work-battered coveralls. “The question is who they were working for.”

“I’m not exactly beloved in that community,” Neal murmurs, and looks out the window at the rushing countryside.

The criminal world doesn’t love him. Respect isn’t the same thing as love, he learned that much the hard way. You can’t con someone’s affections, not without serious ramifications when you’re caught, Jones would say. Get a life, Caffrey, Diana would say.

Three minutes, this time: three minutes to think about Clinton Jones, about Diana Berrigan, about the rest of the bureau. Three minutes, and then he’s focused again, mentally searching the lady in furs and the working men for hidden bugs or weapons, subtly marking each exit on the train, always on the lookout.

He buys another cheap burner phone at the nearest station and calls the office in New York, because they take international calls without any additional charge, and he doesn’t want to make the Burkes’ phone bill outrageously costly.

Diana answers, crisp and curt. “Caffrey.” There’s no surprise in her voice.

“I need to talk to Peter,” Neal says, breathless. Across the station, Kate is walking out of the bathroom, still carrying their bags. “I don’t have much time—”

“Keep your pants on, I got him—boss, it’s Neal—”

And then Peter’s voice, accompanied by a rustle of fabric like he’d grabbed the phone from Diana’s hand, his words rushed and frantic—“What’s wrong, are you all right, did something happen to you?”

Neal takes a deep breath and says, “Someone tried to kill me this morning.”

He does not say: I know there is nothing you can do, I know there is no point to calling you, I know the real and only reason that you were the one I dialled is because your voice calms me down. He does not say: I am breaking apart. He does not say: I am tired of running.

Peter takes a breath. Exhales. Says, “Neal,” quiet, like an apology.

Neal closes his eyes.

 

-

 

Trust is a tricky little thing. Someone like Keller would say Neal trusts too easily; someone like Peter would say it’s too difficult to count on his trust. Neal’s accustomed to going back and forth from one to the other, living in the space between two absolutes, hidden down in the compromise. He lives in both worlds, a persona non grata in each, turned away at the border.

“You told me once that you would never lie to me,” Peter says, or maybe Neal’s imagining it again.

Neal says, “And I never have. Not to you.”

When it really comes down to it, he wants to go home.

He steals a diamond necklace for Kate, steals a set of ruby earrings to match the red evening dress, steals a 24K gold bracelet that encircles her slender wrist and glitters when it catches the light, fleeting, elusive. He steals a new suit, leaving Byron’s old two-piece in its place. He takes out all the cash in one of Nick Halden’s old trust funds and dishes out compensation for the lost items.

It’s never too late to go back to the old way, Mozzie argues in his head. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Sometimes Neal thinks it’s just Stockholm Syndrome—you get used to a certain sort of imprisonment, enough so that you start to miss it. The phantom weight on his ankle, the aching loss of that familiar smile. Sometimes he thinks it’s just how screwed up he is, that the slightest bit of unconditional kindness has messed with his head to make him think things he doesn’t mean. Sometimes he thinks he’s been conned into caring about people he shouldn’t give a damn about, conned into wanting to go back, conned into loving.

It’s never too late to change, Elizabeth says, quiet but firm, and he thinks about her soft hand on his shoulder and how she held him tightly that one night when they thought Peter was dead and that they were the only ones left.

I promised you I’d keep him safe, Neal had gasped into her shoulder, and she held him tighter, as fierce in her love as she was in her protection.

He feels like he’s living one of Mozzie’s conspiracies, and it hurts, because Neal Caffrey is good enough not to get tangled up in a simple honeypot scheme. He’s dealt in such techniques; he knows the way. The only thing that can con him is sincerity. He doesn’t know what to do with sincerity beyond hold it to the light, smooth and circular in his palm, a gentle, comforting weight.

Family is who’s there when you really need them.

“You can come with me,” he tells Kate, later, when they’re in a hotel in Germany, waiting for room service to bring up breakfast. “If there’s anyone who could keep you safe.” He doesn’t finish the thought; he knows she understands. That’s one of the things he appreciated about Kate: she could grasp his meaning without his having to say a word.

Kate brushes her fingers over his mouth, gentle as a butterfly’s wing. “No,” she says. “No, I can’t.”

 

-

 

It’s been years since the first time Peter Burke set his badge on the table with a promise of full immunity. That night was meant to be Neal’s, his secrets to spill with no strings attached, but Peter added one final piece as he was leaving.

A signal. For emergencies, in case Neal needed to run.

They’ve only used it twice—once, with the island, and now, with the scene a circle of cries and gunshots and blood and desperate breaths. Peter told him to run.

Neal doesn’t remember how this is supposed to go. It’s not his memory to carry any longer.

 

-

 

Kate leaves him with a kiss, a smile, and a vial of poison.

“Tetrodotoxin,” she says, stepping back and gathering the luggage. “It’s extremely lethal. Be careful.”

“I always am,” says Neal, and pockets the TXT as he turns to go. There are things that are truths, and the promise of New York that hangs tantalisingly in the air is one of them. He’s not one for flighty, frivolous truths. When it comes down to it, extravagance is what gets you killed, and Neal doesn’t actually want to die.

He puts the name on his plane ticket as _Neal Caffrey_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Tumblr.](spacestationtrustfund.tumblr.com)


End file.
